In this episode of the Western Standard, Derek Fildebrandt talks with Christine Anderson, a member of the European Parliament with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, about the recent federal election in Germany and the impact of mass migration.
00:02:43.400So Germans just had a federal election or Bund to elect a new Bundestag, essentially the German version of the House of Commons.
00:02:58.600And the AFD was pretty much unanimously considered the big winner.
00:03:04.900To a lesser extent, the Union, which is the kind of sister parties of the CDU, CSU, and maybe even D-Linka a bit, who significantly increased their vote share.
00:03:15.700That's the, for lack of a better term, the Communist Party.
00:03:21.780You know, I don't want to name call because your party gets name called as well, but I think they're pretty, they're very openly Marxist party.
00:03:30.640Germans voted significantly to the right.
00:03:34.060one of the biggest wins of the right in the history of the Federal Republic, I think it's
00:03:41.300very fair to say. First place was the, what's generally described as the traditional Conservative
00:03:46.880Party, and the CDU, CSU, for most of its history, I think, would fairly be described as that.
00:03:52.840It moved very significantly to the left, particularly under Angela Merkel's chancellorship,
00:03:58.640which opened up space among more traditional Conservatives for the AFD. AFD is a new party
00:04:03.700that came out of the Eurozone debt crisis and then evolved, taking on the mass migration issues
00:04:09.240when Angela Merkel threw open the borders to Germany and to Europe.
00:04:14.040CDU came in first here. Let's actually put up the election results graphic here,
00:04:18.520just so people get a sense here. Let's put that up, John.
00:04:21.700So you'll see there the first place party is the CDU or union, which is the ever so barely
00:04:29.540conservative party, but still has, I think, a lot of residual support from its tradition of being a
00:04:34.900conservative party in Germany. Second place was the AfD Alternative for Deutschland, which is a
00:04:42.180more robustly conservative party. It's made up of libertarians, conservatives, nationalists. It's
00:04:49.260a mix of things, as most parties are. And for the first time in the history of the Federal
00:04:55.760republic of germany the uh the social democrats the spd fell to third place uh now conservative
00:05:04.960uh germans voted for a significant turn to the right the big issue i think it's fair to say
00:05:09.920christine was uh was migration people wanted very decisive action on migration there were
00:05:16.400an endless stream of terrorist terrorist attacks in uh in in germany even during the election
00:05:23.360campaign itself. It was the issue that people were voting for. But there's a weird, unwritten,
00:05:34.260unofficial rule in Germany called the Braunmauer. It translates roughly as firewall, meaning to
00:05:42.700keep the so-called, I'm putting this in quotes, far right out of any governing coalition or even
00:05:49.060relying on its votes to pass a bill or a motion or anything. We'll get into how fair or appropriate
00:05:55.220the label of far right is in a little bit here. But this means that even though Germans voted for
00:06:01.460an ostensibly center-right conservative party and a further right conservative party, for lack of
00:06:08.880better term, a clear majority of Germans voted for that, and they have a clear majority in the
00:06:12.960Bundestag, they're not going to actually get that, even though it's a clear majority of seats. They're
00:06:16.860going to get the Union barely center-right party with the SPD Social Democrats, a center-left-to-left
00:06:25.960party. What is this doing in Germany when Germans vote very clearly, decisively for a very big change
00:06:35.420in direction and not much seems to actually be changing? Well, yeah, that's just the problem.
00:06:42.300So most of the voters in Germany, they feel completely betrayed because looking at the election results, the majority of the German people actually voted for a blue and black coalition, meaning the Christian Democrats and my party, the AFD.
00:07:02.460And so it's not only the biggest betrayal of the German voters, it's also the fastest betrayal.
00:07:11.540So not 24 hours after the results had come in, the president of the Christian Democrats, he already kind of backstabbed what he kind of went back on what he had promised, that he would significantly reduce mass migration, which actually is an invasion at this point, by promising that he would close the borders.
00:07:38.580And like I said, 24 hours after the results had come in, he was, you know, standing there was like, well, no one ever spoke of closing up the borders, right?
00:08:31.820So just anywhere in Germany, you know, if you're at the wrong spot at the wrong time, you might fall victim to some, you know, well, the majority, they will claim to have, you know, psychological problems.
00:08:45.480So you fall victim to just a random knife attack.
00:08:52.620And he betrayed the people, you know, by now saying, well, no one ever spoke of closing the borders.
00:08:58.840The second thing they did, which was even more despicable, is the fact so now all of a sudden they realized after that visit of Zelensky in the White House and that Donald Trump, how he was not BSing around with Zelensky and pretty much, you know, told everyone, look, you either, you know, get to the table and you negotiate a peace deal or there isn't going to be any support from the U.S. anymore.
00:09:26.660So now all of a sudden they started realizing here, oh, my God, you know, we are no longer able to defend ourselves.
00:09:33.120Yeah. Why are you not able to? Why are we no longer able to defend ourselves?
00:09:36.820Very simple. In the last decades, any young man who had, you know, any aspiration of joining the army, whether it be in a setting where it's mandatory, where I have to do a certain amount of service, a certain amount of time or voluntary.
00:10:08.380Now they're realizing, oh, shoot, Donald Trump is no longer footing the bill,
00:10:12.380or the American people, I should say, might no longer foot the bill for our defense.
00:10:17.420So now we have to do something, right?
00:10:19.620So and then they realized that the newly elected Bundestag, if they were to come up with an amount to, you know, prop up our defense spending, they can't because the Constitution prohibits that right now.
00:10:37.280They pulled in the ceiling as how deep Germany can go into additional debt.
00:10:43.440So and they figured this is not going to work out.
00:10:46.120So, but then looking at, well, we need to change the constitution, but then they realized with a newly elected Bundestag, they wouldn't have the required two-third majority.
00:10:57.240And so just, if I understand what happened is, before the new Bundestag is sworn in, there's a lame duck Bundestag, and it's not really supposed to do anything other than essentially minding the shop.
00:11:09.520But in an unprecedented way, they changed the constitution before the new Bundestag is sworn in post-election.
00:11:18.720Right. So the new Bundestag was already elected, but it hadn't been summoned yet.
00:11:24.840So they decided to summon the old Bundestag, who had clearly not been elected in the way it is composed,
00:11:34.100and they changed the constitution um so they can have additional debt uh up to
00:11:43.140wait for it 1.5 trillion euros yeah this is only for germany right and uh and frederick um
00:11:56.200merits the uh presumed next chancellor a very almost certainly next chancellor he ran against
00:12:02.340that literally days earlier right like he was against that in his own election and then yeah
00:12:07.540throughout democracy to do it with the left-wing parties that was one of his major uh campaigning
00:12:13.860point right we need to reduce the debt the debt and the ceiling we pulled in uh so we can't have
00:12:19.460any more additional debt he he campaigned on that he was gonna not touch it but here we are right
00:12:26.820and then happened with like a week after uh the election results came in so yeah the german people
00:12:34.900they feel betrayed and um so but what this idiot also did and i'm specifically speaking about0.80
00:12:43.220friedrich mertz and yes i'm calling him a complete idiot um what he also did during campaigning he0.82
00:12:50.180made it very clear to everyone that that is actually one of the promises he kept um he will
00:12:57.300not even speak to my party no matter what the outcome he will not speak to us so i want to talk
00:13:07.700he he told the social democrats and the green party that look you know uh i'm pretty much at
00:13:15.700your mercy you can you know demand whatever you want from me and i will have to do it because i
00:13:22.340want to become chancellor and that's what they did that's exactly what they did so that's what i want
00:13:27.620to ask about here with the uh the brown mawa the firewall uh there were some cracks that it's not
00:13:35.060broken but there were some cracks in the firewall uh right before the election on some migration
00:13:40.420reform bills where merits was trying to take a uh more anti-mass migration pose which very clearly
00:13:48.280seems to be for electoral purposes now since he's gone back on it immediately but he put forward a
00:13:53.340bill uh limiting mass migration uh you know at least steps in the right direction not far enough
00:13:59.740but steps in the right direction uh the spd and the other left parties were obviously against it
00:14:07.040uh afd was willing to support it the bundestag and he he passed it at least one of the two
00:14:14.960i believe yes uh with support of the afd and that was considered scandalous um and he oh yeah but
00:14:21.680he was willing to do it um yes so if i want you to open the election right that was yeah right
00:14:27.680right before the election but he said he would never form a coalition government with the afd
00:14:31.680but that that was still a crack in the in the firewall because even that was against the rule
00:14:36.160the so-called rules of it right um so what happened here was um so since he was campaigning
00:14:41.720right and since he wanted to become chancellor and since he needed to come in first in that
00:14:46.360election that's what he actually did he proposed to the Bundestag um to two items um dealing with
00:14:54.240restricting uh immigration and uh so the first one uh actually passed in the Bundestag right
00:15:02.820and um so it was like all hell broke loose right there was talks about he had opened the the gate
00:15:09.620to hell because he accepted our votes you know to pass this this piece of it wasn't the legislation0.73
00:15:16.580it was some other kind of piece uh dealing with that um so he opened the the the gates to hell
00:15:23.940now and you know we're just gonna i don't know disappear from the planet he was called nazi
00:15:30.420and then all of a sudden there was this astroturfing protesting going on again right and
00:15:36.020thousands and thousands of people taking the streets now not only protesting afd they were
00:15:42.500protesting the christian democrats because they had dared to even a table something like this in
00:15:48.340the bundestag and uh so they they um uh blockaded there was a placate in front of the headquarters
00:15:56.340of that party uh they were literally hunting uh politicians from the christian democrats down
00:16:02.260right and then he cracked again right it was like well yeah no we didn't quite mean it like that
00:16:08.180so then when the legislation was actually supposed to to uh get voted on in the bundestag
00:16:14.420he cracked right so and that that was not passed there were a lot of um members of the christian
00:16:20.100democrats that didn't even vote for their own proposal just so it wouldn't pass right so but
00:16:25.940that like i said that was right before the election right so and people were like oh well he's saying
00:16:31.860the right stuff now he's doing the right stuff now yeah let's all vote for him let's all vote for him
00:16:37.060right so we tried to tell the people this he's just putting on a show you will see right after
00:16:43.540the the election he is not going to remember any of that and that's what we're seeing so i want to
00:16:50.420I'm going to switch gears a bit back to the election results itself.
00:16:54.080We're going to put up a map of the election results.
00:16:58.380Now, the map you see is not a map from 1982 showing West Germany, the Federal Republic, and East Germany, the GDR.
00:17:10.720That is the election map from just a few weeks ago.
00:17:14.320uh you'll see everyone can see on the map uh the black is the the union the again nominally
00:17:22.260conservative party dominating west germany uh the former uh well former smaller parts of the
00:17:29.520federal republic and in the blue is the afd uh completely dominating in the former uh eastern
00:17:36.980provinces of uh of germany of the former communist east uh and you see a tiny few specks of red for
00:17:44.280the Social Democrats, SPD, and Green for the Green Party. There's a pretty stark geographical
00:17:52.900divide. You know, we often see, not uniformly, but often in the former communist countries of
00:18:01.660Europe, they're voting for more nationalist, more right-leaning parties in the former communist
00:18:09.620areas uh and and we're seeing that even within germany itself almost an internal border there
00:18:15.600um and there's also a huge generational divide young people particularly young men voted afd
00:18:24.600uh did very well with young women as well although young women uh skewed to die linke the former0.91
00:18:30.980communist party so that's so there's kind of two big divides i i was observing in in the breakdown
00:18:37.400of the German election I'd like you to speak to. One is the East-West divide, CDU-AFD, and
00:18:45.000actually three divides. Generationally, young people voting AFD, older people voting
00:18:52.360for union and the leftist parties, and among young men and young women, young men skewing AFD,
00:18:59.560young women skewing Die Linke, which translates literally as the left. Those are kind of the three0.72
00:19:06.200big divides i have i've observed from the election results do you maybe want to speak to those three
00:19:11.880yeah so um just looking at the map right you clearly see what the majority of the people
00:19:17.560voted for they voted for a coalition between the christian democrats and the and the afd
00:19:23.960uh what they're getting however is uh yet again green and left policy that's what they're getting
00:19:32.280So, like I said, big betrayal on that divide that you were touched upon.
00:19:39.120There is there as far as the divide between East and West is concerned, there is a very good reason for that.1.00
00:19:45.480So in the eastern German parts of Germany, the former GDR, they have lived through communism.
00:19:56.220They have lived through totalitarianism and they recognize the signs.
00:20:01.480They have they're very sensitive to these censorship that's going on and how things are framed in the media.
00:20:10.460They learned how to read a newspaper. It's not important what the newspaper says.
00:20:15.960The more important part is what doesn't it say? And, you know, how do you need to read to be able to read between the lines?
00:20:22.960So they are recognizing all of that. And what they are seeing is it bears all of the hallmarks of the Soviet totalitarianism that they lived under in the communist regime. Right. Whereas in the West, I usually I mean, I was born and raised in Western Germany myself, but I usually refer to us.
00:20:44.560we are just spoiled rotten brats we no longer put any value on freedom democracy and the rule of law
00:20:52.800for some reason um we we seem to have forgotten that it wasn't that one fine day that the sky
00:21:00.720opened up and boom you know it fell down and there it was no it had to be fought for our fathers and
00:21:06.560forefathers had to wrestle it from the former elites and they literally spilled their blood
00:21:12.640But over making sure that we, as their children and children's children, would enjoy freedom, democracy and the rule of law.
00:21:21.600So and now we're just sitting here and we are so utterly afraid of being called right wing extremists, you know, Nazis, whatever, that we would not even dare to act in our best interest on our, you know, on our behalf.
00:21:40.500Just kind of like how they went down in Great Britain with the gang rapes, right?
00:21:47.620The authorities knew that there were Pakistani men, you know, by the hundreds, I don't know,
00:21:54.260raping thousands and thousands of British girls.
00:21:57.200But no one said anything because they were afraid of being called racist.
00:22:49.480They're seeing it in school every day.
00:22:52.560There is schools where the German students
00:22:56.000are in a minority, especially when you look
00:22:59.580at the the under eight year olds we are in a minority already and they're seeing that they're
00:23:05.840seeing all of the problems it brings they're being bullied they're being beaten up they're
00:23:11.160whatever you know so they're seeing this and they don't want this they do not and that's why they
00:23:18.020voted the way they did the the the funny thing about this is so it's actually hilarious um the
00:23:25.380The left and the green, for years, they've been working on lowering their voting age to 16 because they figured, you know, they will vote for the left and the green party.
00:23:38.920Right. So and they actually did lower the voting age for the EU elections.
00:23:43.860So for the EU elections, that did not go well, the 16 year olds, you know, get to vote.
00:23:48.480And ever since we had the EU elections and this trend was already visible, right, that we I mean, in Germany, there is parts where we actually came in first with a 16 to 17, 16 and 17 year olds and the younger, the younger people.
00:24:04.280So guess what? There is no talk about lowering the vote voting age anymore.
00:24:09.200They drop that as fast as they could. They don't even mention that anymore.
00:24:14.340Well, they're all for democracy when the people are voting for them.
00:24:18.880So I want to come to touch on some of the things you were talking about in your response there.
00:24:25.280You came to Canada in 2023, kind of in the fallout, you know, as COVID is kind of winding down.
00:24:34.540You know, you have been quite vocal on some of those issues, including many of the authoritarian actions taken by the Trudeau Liberal government here and our provincial governments.
00:25:21.380Now, most Canadians know very little about your party, the AFD.
00:25:26.840They maybe know slightly more because the election just took place
00:25:29.900and AFD made big global news, but they still know very little about it.
00:25:34.260But the media in Canada and across the world
00:25:37.300seem to have adopted the language used in German media
00:25:41.840just saying far-right or far-right extremist. I butchered that one. But right-wing extremist,
00:25:53.360racist, fascist, you know, all the traditional insults get thrown at anybody to the right of a
00:25:58.800liberal generally. The German media uses that language to describe your party and the rest of
00:26:07.120the media outside of Germany that know almost nothing about the AFD just said, well, if the
00:26:10.960the german establishment media says that i guess we're going to use that language too um
00:26:19.840what why do you think it is because i i was with maybe a few differences here and there i don't
00:26:26.080think there's a huge difference between say the afd of today and say helmet cole's cdu of of 30
00:26:33.520years ago there's some differences uh in some ways he was more right wing than than uh than the afd
00:26:40.240um but you know i it it's it's not it doesn't appear to be wildly outside the mainstream of
00:26:47.440german politics it's just that the the cdu kind of gave up its place as the main party of the right
00:26:54.080um so you know why do you think it is the that uh the german media uh attach the right-wing
00:27:02.480extremist and racist label to your party um i mean i think it's fairly described as a nationalist
00:27:08.560party that term probably has less of a pejorative connotation in english than in german but yeah uh
00:27:14.480i think it's i would describe it as a nationals party but i would say that's a good thing
00:27:18.320um why do you think you know but you know these those harsher labels like racist fascist extremist
00:27:24.880get attached to your party and what do you think you know you and your party can do to to shake
00:27:29.680that um there actually isn't anything we can do to shake this um because i mean you know our program
00:27:37.600if you read our program and you're right it is um it actually resembles the program that the
00:27:43.360christian democrats that is the former conservative party here in germany they came in first in the
00:27:48.240last elections um it pretty much resembles their their program um what has happened however is
00:27:55.760there has been a traumatic shift to the left in the last decades um i mean even with the christian
00:28:02.960democrats and angela merkel i mean she must have been the best green chancellor germany ever had
00:28:10.400for those of you don't know germany never had a green chancellor but the angela merkel from
00:28:16.160the christian democrats she was in fact a green chancellor she um gave up on every single principle
00:28:24.160that the christian democrats um still held at that point right so she tore down all the the nuclear0.73
00:28:31.760power plants she ripped open our borders wide open and now we have the marriage for all and you know1.00
00:28:38.480that slippery slope now we have the self id for the transgender uh confused i want to call them0.98
00:28:46.040um so they can just self id so she pretty much relinquished any kind of holy uh crown they still0.65
00:28:55.140held in in the christian democrats so with this shift to the left you know any kind of a reasonable
00:29:04.500policy any kind of common sense even appears to be now totally out there you know like extreme
00:29:13.780some whatever so on top of that um the majority of um the people in in public media in germany
00:29:23.220they are predominantly from the green and the left party so no wonder um there is no media
00:29:30.100pluralism anymore i mean i remember when i grew up you know if you read in the newspapers they're
00:29:36.740all covered kind of like the same story but they had different angles different perspectives
00:29:42.420different conclusions they highlighted may have highlighted you know different aspects of it so
00:29:48.500you had a wide variety you know uh when you read like let's say four or five different newspapers
00:29:54.980you actually got a full picture and you could make up your own mind what might actually be
00:30:00.260the truth nowadays you can read any newspaper you want you can read a hundred newspapers
00:30:06.180it says the same thing in every single newspaper down to the word they don't even change the word
00:30:13.540anymore so whatever newspaper you open you will find the very same article right um kind of like
00:30:19.620the same thing we we've seen or even with the media in the united states or in canada during
00:30:25.780the covet years they all repeated the same lines no one is safe until everyone is safe stay home
00:30:33.300we have to save granny uh the mrnj mrna injections are safe and effective build back better remember
00:30:41.300and then it was it's a threat to our democracy they were the same lines everywhere they're
00:30:47.800literally reading from the same script so with the public media in germany it's it's by the way
00:30:54.880it's funded by the german people um they call it um they call it a democracy um contribution right
00:31:05.680so but we have the same thing here yeah yeah we are paying to be lied to we are paying to be
00:31:13.300gaslighted we are paying to be manipulated and we are paying to be frowned upon stigmatized
00:31:20.700ostracized called names that's actually what the german people are paying for because that's what0.99
00:31:26.100they're seeing every day in the in the public media and on on tv uh the the legacy media this
00:31:33.120is how insane this is at this at the time but the thing is this like i said it's not only happening
00:31:39.400in germany it's happening in every single western democracy like i said they were literally reading
00:31:45.580from the same script and these attacks on freedom democracy and the rule of law we are seeing this
00:31:52.480everywhere whether it's germany france italy great britain canada the united states australia
00:31:59.340news every we are seeing it everywhere and this is really frightening because the point is this
00:32:06.060you know had there been one or two or three states going rogue somehow you know falling off the trail
00:32:11.740and uh betraying civil rights and fundamental rights and all of that um eventually the people
00:32:19.660would have had the hope eventually you know the world community is going to step in and put a stop
00:32:24.300to it but who do you think is going to bail us out no one if they're all in lockstep if they're all
00:32:30.780doing the same thing there isn't going to be anyone coming around to bail us out this time
00:32:37.340we are we're screwed completely so it's up to the people they need to understand what is happening
00:32:44.220not just in their country but in every single western democracy and they need to step up and
00:32:49.660And they need to make their voices heard and need to protest because otherwise, if they succeed and we do slip in a fully blown totalitarian regime, considering the technological means they have at their disposal nowadays, we are not talking about 70 years of Soviet Union.
00:33:09.980We're not talking about 40 years of GDR. We will then be talking about a very, very long time if we'll be able to overcome it at any point. I don't even think that is possible. So we really need to get on this and we need to fight this already.
00:33:33.380Well, that's very much why I wanted to speak to you was because I see Europe and Germany as very much a canary in the coal mine.0.77
00:33:42.660Germans, at least in large measure, I think, woke up to the danger they are facing in the election they had.
00:33:48.420Not that it seems to have done any good because the same people will largely remain in power regardless of the election.
00:33:54.260but uh i very much appreciate uh you joining uh joining us today uh uh frau anderson and uh
00:34:03.140actually i've always wondered anderson is not a very german name it sounds very english you must
00:34:07.460you must have some english roots right no it's my married name ah okay well uh thank you very much
00:34:15.300for joining us i think it's uh been very insightful into what's taking place in germany taking place
00:34:19.300in Germany right now and very relevant to Canadians going through their own election
00:34:25.860as we speak. Thank you very much for joining us today. Auf Wiedersehen and bis bald.
00:34:32.100Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed it.
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